I caught sight from where I stood of a reasonably complete book roll within one of the fallen racks. I bent and picked it up. Big disappointment: it was complete, even to the firmness of the glued sheets, but someone had washed it in vinegar or some other corrosive, and all the lines had faded to a pale grey.
I walked back over to the table and sat down again. ‘It would please me much to learn the reason for My Lord’s intemperancy of mood,’ I said, still very smooth.
Simeon glared back at me like some caged beast. ‘I have just discovered,’ he said, rising towards another snarl, ‘that I shall not be sitting on your right at tomorrow’s dinner. That place, I am told, is promised to some gross and vulgar barbarian out of Italy.’
I raised my eyebrows. ‘But, surely, Simeon, you will appreciate that the Lord Fortunatus represents the Universal Bishop,’ I said. ‘As for his origins, he comes from a most illustrious family that has produced great men ever since very ancient times. I do even think he is related, on his mother’s side, to the Great Augustus himself.’ Gross and vulgar barbarian — eh? I could be glad the Dispensator was half a mile away in his rat-infested monastery. I could think of no words better calculated to have him calling for his packing boxes.
‘If it doesn’t know Greek, it’s a barbarian!’ Simeon snapped.
I looked back at the twisted face and thought quickly. I could have lectured him on the continuing status of Latin, even now that I’d got Greek established as the official language of the Empire. But you’d have to be a bigger fool than Simeon was not to be aware of this. I gave him a long and very cold stare.
‘My dear Simeon,’ I said quietly, ‘I can see from the slight blueness of the powder under your left nostril that you’ve come straight here from a meeting with your dear cousin Priscus. Doubtless, he told you about the seating arrangements for tomorrow. He may also have told you certain things about the reason for the council that has been summoned to Athens. But do please allow me to give you the full story.’ I could have waited for someone to come back with wine. I could have waited for the effect of the drugs he’d been given to fade. But, if that made him less personally unpleasant, it would have done nothing to shift what I could see was his settled view of things. There’s a time for jollying along, and a time for turning nasty. I could see it was time for the latter.
‘Simeon,’ I took up again, ‘you were appointed to your see with the express consent of the Emperor. By the Emperor’s grace, you are permitted to spend part of the year amid the joys of Constantinople. You undoubtedly have certain advantages of wealth and learning over your brethren of Rome. The Scriptures were composed in your own language. You may claim primacy in certain spiritual matters. But the real difference between you and the Lord Dispensator is this.’ I leaned forward over the table and snapped my fingers into his face. I took hold of his beard and pulled it. I pushed him gently in the chest and watched as he nearly went backwards.
‘You presume too much, Alaric,’ he finally cried back at me. ‘Just because the Great Augustus-’
I silenced him with a crash of my fist on the table that knocked all Theodore’s waxed tablets out of order. When he’d finished jabbering back at me, I leaned forward and pushed my face close to his.
‘Don’t talk back to me about the Emperor,’ I said with quiet menace. ‘So long as he keeps the army sweet, and doesn’t let the Circus mob get out of hand, Heraclius can declare for any Eastern heresy that takes his fancy. He can announce that Christ appeared on earth as nothing more than a ghost, and that it was by a continuing miracle that those round him thought he was other than a direct Emanation of God. Or he can resurrect the Arian heresy. Or he can declare that Christ had a bald patch two inches wide, and got seven children on Mary Magdalene. He can do all of this, and your interest will be best consulted by assenting to what he says and preaching it to however sceptical a people. And if you breathe so much as a word about his orthodoxy or sanity, a file of guards will march straight into your church and arrest you at the very altar. If you still refuse to see sense, you’ll be lucky to drag out the rest of your days in some monastery on the edges of Scythia. Shall I take you through some of the precedents? Or can we take them as read?’
When he was able to look back at me, I continued: ‘Those Western clerics you’ve spent the past ten days or whatever insulting, and over whom you’ve now insulted me and the Emperor himself, are in a very different position. They don’t ultimately give a toss about us or our difficulties with the Eastern Patriarchates. They don’t need to. Between Ravenna and Bari, I don’t think we have a single armed man in Italy. Certainly, Rome is both governed and defended by the Church. For all we can do anything to those he represents, the Lord Fortunatus might as well be from China.
‘We can do nothing to him and his,’ I said, now with savage ill-humour, ‘but they can fuck us over good and proper. That deacon from Rome has more power in his little finger to hurt us in our Syrian and Egyptian dealings than you Greeks have in your collective loins. And I know that he will use that power if he thinks he or the Roman Church has not received the total respect he believes appropriate. And I’ll do whatever it takes to keep him absolutely sweet — even if it means dragging you by the hair into the dining room tomorrow and setting about you with a cane until you offer him your clerical kiss of peace.’
‘And what makes you think Heraclius really wants your settlement of the Monophysite heresy?’ Simeon now got the wind to cry back at me. ‘How much confidence do you think he’s still got in Sergius? If anyone is at risk of being shipped off to Scythia, it’s surely His Present Holiness the Patriarch of Constantinople — a Patriarch, I’ll remind you, appointed by the tyrant Phocas against the wishes of every Greek bishop.’ He laughed bitterly, and even managed to stare me in the face.
‘And I know exactly how much confidence he has in you, My Lord Senator!’ he went on. ‘You failed him in Alexandria. You’ve made trouble for him among everyone of quality with your land confiscation project. You want to give land to the peasants, in the hope that they’ll do more to defend the Empire than their betters have. More likely, you want to reproduce the same chaotic spirit of independence as among your own dirty barbarians! Can’t you see how you’ve been set up to fail? Oh, you can lay violent hands on me. But it doesn’t alter the truth of the matter.’
Whatever drug Priscus had fed him was working miracles for his courage. But, if he really thought I’d set about him with the cane he deserved, he was wrong. I made my mind up and smiled calmly back at him.
‘Dear Simeon,’ I said. ‘The workings of the Imperial Mind are far above both of us. Let us not argue what they may or may not have resolved before you took ship for Athens. But I will remind you that we have a most important council starting the day after tomorrow. Your duty there will be to judge such issues as may be raised purely on their theological merits. If I find reason to think that you are following some other agenda, I will see to it personally that Heraclius is made aware of certain facts that will not stand to your credit. I assure you that your truest interest lies in acting as a bishop of the Church and not as some third-rate politician, dabbling in affairs that are beyond your understanding.’
I waited for this to impress itself on his mind. The thing about intelligence information is that it should only be used when all else has failed. Even then, it should, in the first instance, be used allusively. This was now one of those first instance times. Possibly, Heraclius was out of sorts with me. Possibly, he was tired of Sergius, and was interested in some purely local deal with the Greek Church. Whatever the case, all I could do was press on as if the words of my commission were explicit instructions to do as I’d resolved. And, if I gave him that on my return, he might even decide it was what the Great Augustus had wanted after all.